Pentagon to Seek Less for Missile Defense in 2014 Budget

By Tony Capaccio -
Apr 8, 2013

The Pentagon will request $9.16
billion for missile defense programs for the 2014 fiscal year
that begins Oct. 1, about $550 million less than this year’s
$9.71 billion, according to internal budget figures obtained by
Bloomberg News.

The missile defense proposal scheduled to be released April
10 is part of a $526.6 billion defense budget President Barack Obama will propose, according to government officials familiar
with the budget plan who asked not to be named discussing it in
advance.

The request is subject to congressional scrutiny and could
be increased in areas lawmakers decide to give greater emphasis,
such as the ground-based system of missile interceptors based in
Alaska and California to protect the U.S. Last year, House
members added money to start construction of a site on the East
Coast. The Senate removed the funds, asking the Pentagon to
conduct an environmental impact study instead.

Funding could also face additional across-the-board
reductions if automatic cuts known as sequestration stay in
place throughout fiscal 2014.

The administration’s reduced request comes despite
heightened concerns about North Korean threats to attack U.S.
bases in South Korea, Japan and Guam.

The Pentagon last week announced it was deploying Lockheed
Martin (LMT) Corp.’s Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense system, which
uses truck-mounted interceptors, to Guam. The Navy has stationed
two Aegis-class destroyers, which are equipped to track and
target missiles, in the region.

Representative Mike Rogers, chairman of the House Armed
Services Committee’s missile defense panel, said in e-mail
statement: “These repeated cuts are even more troubling given
the advances in nuclear weapons and missile technology by the
unstable regime in North Korea.”

‘Lip Service’

“The United States cannot be defended with lip service,”
the Alabama Republican said. “It is time for President Obama to
commit to a robust missile defense program now.”

This year’s missile defense request is lower than last
year’s primarily because the administration is requesting no
funding for the ground-based, mobile Medium Extended Air Defense
System, or Meads, being developed by Lockheed Martin, of
Bethesda, Maryland, with Rome-based Mbda Italia SpA. and
Schrobenhausen, Germany-based LFK Lenkflugkoerpersysteme GmbH.

Congressional budget negotiators in December blocked
further funding for the program. Lawmakers, however, included
$400 million to complete U.S. participation in the Meads system
in a continuing budget resolution Congress passed last month to
keep the government operating through Sept. 30.

Missile Defense Agency spokesman Richard Lehner said he’d
have no comment on the budget until it’s released.

Last month, the Pentagon said it planned to spend $1
billion by 2017 to improve and deploy additional Orbital
Sciences ground-based interceptors in Alaska to stop a small
number of intercontinental ballistic missiles that could be
fired from Iran or North Korea.

How much of that money will be included in the fiscal 2014
budget request depends in part on a test of the still-unproven
system’s new warhead that won’t take place until later this year
or in early 2014. The warhead failed two intercept tests in
2010.

The Pentagon is seeking about $1 billion in fiscal 2014 for
the ground-based interceptor system managed by Boeing, an
increase of about $100 million from this year.

Aegis Funding

Combined spending of $945 million for Lockheed Martin’s
Patriot Advanced Capability-3 program, to include a “missile
segment enhancement” upgrade for current missiles, remains
about the same as the Pentagon’s request for fiscal 2013.

The administration’s proposed defense spending for fiscal
2014 doesn’t include automatic cuts of as much as $50 billion
that will be imposed unless Obama and Congress rescind or amend
the deficit-reduction requirement.

The total Pentagon request will drop to about $475 billion
if Congress doesn’t roll back the automatic cuts, Todd Harrison,
a budget analyst with the non-partisan Center for Strategic and
Budgetary Assessments in Washington told reporters April 5.